Freestanding cooking ranges comprise an enclosure having a generally flat cook top with cooking elements and an oven cavity. Such ranges are typically referred to as thermal ovens and are of the gas or electric type. The gas range includes gas burners on the cook top, as well as a gas burner within the oven cavity. Similarly, an electric range includes electric heating elements on the cook top and one or more electric heating elements within the oven cavity.
The oven cavity generally comprises connected rear, top, bottom, and side walls to define an oven space having a front opening. Rails are formed in the side walls for supporting oven racks. In a gas oven the burner is typically disposed between a bottom panel and the bottom wall for heating the oven space. An electric oven may use the same oven cavity. However, the bottom plate is eliminated so that the electric heating element is exposed. The exposed heating element can make cleaning the oven cavity more difficult.
An alternative type of oven comprises a convection oven. A convection oven includes an electric heating element and a blower fan for circulating air heated by the heating element within the oven space. Circulating air is returned to the fan so that the heated air is, in effect, recirculated within the cooking space. This allows food to be cooked at lower temperatures or for shorter periods of time.
A typical oven includes a door gasket surrounding the top and sides of the door, but not the bottom. The lack of a bottom gasket provides an air gap so that air can be drawn in at the bottom of the door. However, with self-cleaning ovens this air can present difficulty in that cold air entering at the bottom of the door might prevent the front bottom wall from being completely cleaned.
A convection oven often includes the fan mounted at the back wall of the cavity with a deflector plate frontwardly of the fan. This structure reduces available depth in the oven cavity, providing a smaller cooking space. The smaller cooking space precludes the use of oven racks of the same size as used in the conventional thermal oven.
The present invention is intended to solve one or more of the problems discussed above in a novel and simple manner.